A ten-person office is often treated like a house with ten residents. The results disappoint, and the reason isn't the headcount.
At home, usage spreads across the day. In an office, ten people open the same applications at nine in the morning, and three of them join video meetings at ten. The peak is far sharper.
Four needs that don't exist at home
| Need | Why it differs |
|---|---|
| Upload speed | Video meetings send as much as they receive |
| Stability | A 10-second drop mid-meeting costs more than being slow |
| Shared devices | Printers and storage must be visible from every desk |
| Guest network | Clients arrive daily and ask for access |
Upload speed is the one most often missed. Many home plans give far less upload than download, an arrangement that makes sense for watching video, but is poor for an office holding online meetings every day.
Estimating capacity
Calculate from the number of people working simultaneously, not the room's area:
- General office work: email, online documents, browsing: around 3 Mbps per person.
- Video meetings: 2 to 4 Mbps per participant, in each direction.
- Uploading large files: design, video: allow clear headroom.
A ten-person office with three simultaneous video meetings needs about 45 Mbps at peak. A 100 Mbps subscription gives comfortable room. A more detailed method is in the venue Wi-Fi capacity guide.
Note that this headcount-based calculation doesn't hold if the office adjoins a warehouse or production area. Metal racking and users on the move call for a different approach, see the guide to warehouse and factory Wi-Fi.
An arrangement that works for a small office
Separate three networks from the start
A work network for staff, a guest network for clients, and a device network for cameras and printers. Separating them later is far more troublesome than designing it on day one. How to do it is in the guide to separating a guest network.
Run cable to fixed desks
Computers that don't move should use cable. As well as being more stable, this reduces Wi-Fi load for devices that genuinely need to be wireless. Cable choice is covered in the guide to choosing LAN cable.
Use access points, not extra routers
For spaces over 60 square metres, one access point is rarely enough. Adding them properly is covered in the guide to setting up two routers on one network.
Prioritise video meetings
QoS lets meeting traffic go ahead of background downloads. This keeps meetings clear even while someone is downloading a large file.
On backup internet
The question is simple: how much would it cost if the office couldn't work for a full day? If that figure exceeds a year of backup subscription, the backup is worth it.
Crucially, the backup must run over a different route. Two subscriptions from the same provider, over the same cable, will fail together. A common combination: fibre as primary, and a mobile modem as backup.
Some business routers support two lines and switch automatically when the primary fails. Where that isn't available, even switching manually is far better than having nothing.
Shared devices and visitors
Network printers are a classic source of trouble in small offices. They need to be visible from every desk, but must not sit on the guest network. Give them a fixed IP address so they don't move around, how that works is explained in the guide to local IPs and DHCP.
For visitors, provide a password that's easy to say aloud and print a QR code in the waiting area. Never share the work network password, once it circulates, the only way to cut it off is to change it and reconnect every office device.
Security considerations
An office holds data a home doesn't: client files, financial records, staff data. Three basic steps worth doing from the start:
- Change the router's admin password from the default, and keep it somewhere only one or two people know.
- Turn off WPS and remote access to the router panel, discussed in the guide to securing a router.
- Change the work Wi-Fi password whenever a staff member leaves.
That last step is often forgotten, even though the Wi-Fi password is stored on every device that has ever connected and can be read back at any time, as explained in the guide to viewing saved Wi-Fi passwords.
Frequently asked questions
What speed does a ten-person office need?
For ordinary office work with occasional video meetings, 50 to 100 Mbps is adequate. What matters more is stability and upload speed, because video meetings send as much data as they receive.
Does a small office need business-class access points?
If more than ten people use it simultaneously, yes. The difference isn't range but the ability to handle many connections at once, exactly the condition of an office during working hours.
Do I need backup internet?
It depends how much a full day without internet would cost you. For an office where all work is online, a backup over a different route is generally cheaper than one day of stopped work.
Can visitors use the office Wi-Fi?
They can, but via a separate guest network. Visitors don't need to see the printer, shared files, or staff computers, and its password can be changed without disturbing work devices.
